As a parent, you never know what is going to happen. Most days go by normally and they lull the parent into thinking they will all be that way. Every now and then, something happens that shows they don't have to be.
When our daughter was quite little, before she could speak clearly, she started to have troubles while sleeping. She would wake up, frightened and upset. She was clearly afraid of something and she would repeatedly say some phrase or sound but neither her mother, an astute, imaginative and careful listener nor I could make out what she was saying. After the little kid did manage to quiet back down and fall asleep again, the two of us would repeat back and forth to each other as accurately as we could manage what we thought we heard but we didn't recognize any word in her utterance. You know how a puzzle can grow on you as you get more and more determined to solve it. When young parents get awakened by a scared child crying out in fear after getting nicely to sleep, they get frightened and perplexed themselves. When it happens several nights in a row, the determination to find a solution gets pretty strong.
I think it was Lynn who noticed that our girl's upset might be coordinated with the furnace blower turning on. Her little bed was right near a heat vent and maybe the fan beginning to blow caused our daughter to look at the vent. Lynn eventually worked out, with constant checking, that the phrase was "the house is wiggling." Our girl thought the heat was the sound of the house betraying dangerous instability. Her mother was able to assure her the sound was a good one and did not signal any sort of danger. Problem solved and it never bothered us again.
The same little girl was very pleased to get an Easter basket, one with several large chocolate Easter eggs seated in artificial grass surrounded by jelly beans. Inexplicably, she started crying while trying out the jelly beans. Her mother noticed that saliva was dribbling down her chin and looked more closely at her mouth. Yikes! There were way too many jelly beans crammed into that little mouth, so many, in fact, that she could not move her jaw or swallow. Lynn dug her finger into the gooey strangling mass and pulled some of it out. That little sweetie is the grandmother of four now and from that day to this, she has not had any more trouble with jelly beans.
